Ariane Briegel, PhD, Professor of Ultrastructural biology, Leiden University

New insights into bacterial behavior from electron cryotomography

Most motile bacterial cells possess a highly sensitive and adaptable sensory system composed of clusters of chemoreceptors. This chemosensory system is used to detect changes in nutrient concentrations, allows the cells to navigate towards preferential environments and is also involved in host infection by some pathogenic bacteria.  Many motile bacteria contain several, sometimes purely cytoplasmic chemotaxis systems.

In order to gain structural and mechanistic insight into this bacterial signal transduction system, we use Electron Cryotomography (ECT) to study the three-dimensional architecture of these highly organized chemosensory systems. ECT provides a powerful tool to study molecular machines in three-dimensions at macromolecular resolution. Recent advances in automatic data collection schemes, advanced electron microscope instruments, as well as new software tools for data processing provide the necessary framework to unravel structure and function of the bacterial chemotaxis system.

Host: Associate professor Ebbe Sloth Andersen, iNANO & Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University